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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23617543">Between</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celia_and/pseuds/Celia_and'>Celia_and</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ahch-To Mirror Cave, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Grief-induced weight loss, Grief/Mourning, One Shot, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, World Between Worlds, based on art</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:00:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,425</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23617543</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celia_and/pseuds/Celia_and</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He waits. It could be an hour, or a year.</p><p><em>I’m here,</em> he tries to tell her. <em>Take your time.</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>312</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Between</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">

        <li>
          Translation into Русский available: 
            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25599937">Между</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elafira/pseuds/Elafira">Elafira</a>
        </li>


    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a small one-shot based on this astounding art (by <a href="https://twitter.com/gwendy85">@gwendy85</a> on Twitter), which was in turn inspired by two tweeted prompts, by <a href="https://twitter.com/geekmystic">@geekmystic</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/thesupremejedi">@thesupremejedi</a>:</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <a href="https://twitter.com/gwendy85">@gwendy85</a>
</p><p> </p><p>She knows she can’t have him. She’s told herself over and over and she <em>knows</em>. She’s been ripped in half and will bleed from the invisible wound until she dies of it, but she’s accepted all that.</p><p>All she wanted was to see him, one more time.</p><p>A tiny favor, really—not much to ask in return for a lifetime of nigh-unendurable pain. But despite all her pleas, the mirror in its serene coldness won’t grant this one boon. It only shows her herself: not even a prophetic vision, but her as she is. Too thin, because why should she eat when he can’t. Hair too long, though why it keeps growing when she’s dead inside Rey doesn’t know. The mirror reflects back to her the dark hollows under her cheekbones.</p><p>It’s a haunted face, and Rey traces her reflection with her thumb. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Her face should be full and bright with the certainty of being loved. They should have come back together to this place, where their hands first found each other.</p><p>But it’s only her. Alone. Again and forever.</p><p>And her face contorts to a snarl, and she ignites her saber.</p><p>She attacks until her arms ache and then keeps going. The saber rubs her skin red, and still she slashes and slashes at the mirror that taunts her in its unyielding stillness.</p><p>
  <em>You thought you weren’t alone? You thought you could have love in your life? No. You could have him just long enough to lose him.</em>
</p><p>An inhuman scream leaves her throat. It helps, to feel less human. Because if she weren’t human then she wouldn’t feel this pain that chokes her. She screams through the hurt and raises her arms again and again, leaving glowing gashes in the mirror’s smooth face.</p><p>Her hair comes loose from its binding and sweat drips into her eyes, and her throat is hoarse and her hands are raw but she can’t stop, she <em>can’t</em> stop, because once she stops, then what? The rest of her life, then. Without him.</p><p>It’s her legs that give way in the end. Her throat can still force out a broken yell and her arms quiver with exhaustion but keep hacking away, and finally her knees buckle and she falls to her hands and knees, head bowed.</p><p>She wants to scream her agony but she’s used up all her screams. So the tears come instead.</p><p>Her sobs heave her torso in violent convulsions. The pain is impossible. She falls in on herself, curling up on the jagged floor. Her tears fall on the rock.</p><p>When she stills at last she considers just staying there, used up and wrung out on the cave floor. This is a good as any a place to die.</p><p>But something makes her sit up. She leans back against the scarred mirror.</p><p><em>Rey,</em> she imagines she hears, in <em>his</em> voice. She bows her head against the cruelty of the hallucination, but she closes her eyes and lets herself pretend, just for a moment.</p><p>She doesn’t see the blue butterfly fluttering high above her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He exists in his body, but nothing else. There is no other physicality in this place of endless black.</p><p>He isn’t lonely. The constellations keep him company.</p><p>He breathes. He rests.</p><p>Time works differently here. He isn’t aware of its passing because nothing changes.</p><p>The darkness isn’t oppressive. It cradles him. He has no bodily needs.</p><p>He could lose track of himself, here.</p><p>His mind drifts like windblown sand. The further into the black he goes, the more untethered he becomes from what he used to be. There’s a reason he should fight it, he thinks. But he can’t remember.</p><p>He slips sideways.</p><p>The plane where he rests is at once solid, liquid, and gas. Sometimes it holds him gently. Sometimes it slides him toward something. He doesn’t want to move. He’d rather just be.</p><p>Then there’s something different: not the black and not the stars. A ring of white etched in the infinite black.</p><p>Suddenly he <em>needs</em> to get to it. He had forgotten what need was.</p><p>He crawls and swims and flies and drags himself through the black to reach it. He doesn’t know why he has to get to it, but he does. It’s imperative.</p><p>He approaches, and the circle widens as he does. It could be a passageway to something if there existed anywhere else to go.</p><p>As he gets closer he sees that it’s solid, like glass. He doesn’t know how he knows that it’s waiting for him. He reaches out a hand to touch it. As his palm presses to the smooth surface, he knows.</p><p>
  <em>Rey.</em>
</p><p><em>Oh,</em> he had a life. He had <em>her</em>. He doesn’t belong here.</p><p>Ben remembers himself.</p><p>He runs his hands all over the glassy surface, looking for some clue, some imperfection. A door handle in space and time. It yields nothing to his touch. He’s filled with impatience. Doesn’t it know they need each other? Why is it making him make her wait?</p><p>Then a calm certainty is gifted to him, from where he doesn’t know. She’ll come. She’ll come for him. He just has to wait.</p><p>That’s fine. As long as she needs. He can do anything for her.</p><p>He sits down on the infinite plane, his back resting against the circle. He watches the constellations. He waits. It could be an hour, or a year.</p><p><em>I’m here,</em> he tries to tell her. <em>Take your time.</em></p><p>The stars start to dance, and shimmer. That’s new.</p><p>They approach, and as they get closer he sees it’s not stars, after all, but a single blue butterfly trailing brilliant points of light.</p><p>It stirs a distant memory in him, of love and safety. And as it comes toward him he <em>knows</em>, with a faith deeper than knowledge.</p><p>She’s here for him. He stands.</p><p>“Rey.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She feels something change but doesn’t know what. A blue light flickers through her closed eyelids, growing brighter. She opens her eyes and looks up.</p><p>A butterfly.</p><p>She’s afraid at first of what tricks the cave might be playing. But an overwhelming assurance tells her that this isn’t the Dark. As the butterfly approaches she scrambles to her feet, but it passes by, continuing toward the mirror. It alights high above her head, wings gently settling. She looks up it, waiting for something. But nothing happens. It just sits, glowing serenely. She keeps expecting something to happen. Why doesn’t it?</p><p>Her gaze finally slides down the mirror, back toward her face. But she no longer sees her reflection.</p><p>She sees him.</p><p>Tears spring back to her eyes. The mirror has granted her this, after all—this one glimpse to sustain her. She drinks him in, eyes caressing every inch of his face. She dashes her tears away impatiently, so she can see for as long as the mirror will allow. He’s wearing the clothes he died in, and looking down at her with such love that she could almost believe he was real.</p><p>Almost.</p><p>She knows she doesn’t have long. The mirror won’t give her forever. Without thinking, she reaches out to him, pressing her hand flat against the mirror. The vision of Ben does the same, stretching his hand out as if their palms could touch, as if she could feel his warmth and not just the scarred jagged glass.</p><p>But then, she does.</p><p>His palm is <em>real</em> against her palm, and then his hand closes around hers and she reaches out frantically with the other and feels no glass, just his cheek. And his ear and his hair and then his <em>everything</em>, because she’s wrapped in his arms.</p><p>She thought her tears had run dry, but new ones come from untapped wells of gladness. She can’t stop kissing him.</p><p>“Rey,” he says, over and over, between kisses. “You came. You came for me.”</p><p>She can’t speak, she can only hold onto him. She finally burrows her face in his chest and he cradles her in his arms, pressing long kisses to the top of her head.</p><p>“I’m here,” he says, because he knows she needs to hear it. “I’m not going anywhere.”</p><p>When she looks up he touches her too-thin cheeks and promises her <em>all</em> the food. She touches the hole in his sweater and promises to mend it.</p><p>They leave the cave together, hand in hand.</p><p>He remembers sunlight, now, and ocean spray. She remembers joy.</p><p>He says he’ll never leave her, and she believes him.</p><p>He never does.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>♥️</p></blockquote></div></div>
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